The Australian Platypus (1949)

The Australian Platypus (A Gaumont Animaland film, 1949) 
Dir: Bert Felstead
Cel Bloc Rating: 7/9

A few months ago, I woke up in the middle of the night to take care of some much needed ablutions (to put it bluntly, the dream sequence in my head began to rely a little too much on ocean imagery, and I didn't want to wake up swimming in the Yellow Sea). Jen was awake too, for a similar reason (it's amazing when a couple can sync such events together), and there on our ever-glowing television were scenes from a cartoon that I did not recognize.

At least, I did not recognize the characters, two lovestruck platypi... uh, platypuses... uh, platypodes... oh, whatever. There was a male platypus and a female platypus cavorting cutely in a river in Australia, carving decorated hearts into the water's surface with their tails. And I, in my half-roused blurry vision said out loud, "Ah, Harman and Ising,” for such was the high level of animal cuteness, combined with lush visuals though without the usual cartoon slapstick, that I immediately assumed it was a little-played MGM cartoon that I had never seen before. And then I went back to sleep.

Of course, I knew all about David Hand: his glory days at Disney directing Bambi and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, his relocation to England in 1944 head up a new animation studio at Gaumont, only to see the studio sputter and get shut down a half decade later. The stuff of film history. I had only seen one of the nine films of the studio's signature Animaland series previously, and that was Ginger Nutt's Christmas Circus, since it occasionally pops up in holiday cartoon collections. 

Since I had never considered that I might actually see the rest of Hand's British output, I had never really studied much about his career after Disney except knowing the basic information. So, even though there was a cartoon that I had never seen before on television featuring one of my favorite mammalian species -- what's not to love... a duck and a beaver practically rolled into one, an egg layer, and the part that is frequently forgotten when discussing this monotreme: the fact that it is venomous?), I was absolutely clueless as to its origin. I simply shrugged the film off to get some much needed ZZZZZZs.

Waking up the next morning, thinking clearer on the situation, I checked TCM.com on the computer to make sure that the whole platypus-bathroom scenario hadn't actually been part of a dream within a dream. But there it was in their monthly guide: a showing of Cartoon Alley, TCM's animation reservoir featuring Ben Mankiewicz, the grandson of the famous and Oscar-winning Citizen Kane scribe, Herman J. Mankiewicz. And it was an entire half-hour devoted to the partially "lost" films of the great David Hand: his Animaland series.

Of course, I immediately set up my Moxi (the Adelphia version of Tivo, without the annoyingly stupid mascot, and said by pumping one's fist in a Burgess Meredith-Rocky style and a gravelly voice, as in "I've got Moxi! Arrrr!!” -- also, sort of like a pirate, I guess) to record the next showing of the episode -- luckily it was being reshown a bit later -- and eventually I found myself wrapped in an animated Brigadoon. It seemed I had stumbled on a precious, lost land of characters that I was sure was going to disappear like gossamer if I blinked my eyes too much. And the first characters that I would get to meet in this magical land were the two little lovelorn platypi... uh, platypuses... uh, platypodes... oh, whatever...

In the cartoon, a map of the Australian continent is first seen while a narrator, with a British accent, describes the mysterious splendors and fauna of this seemingly strange world. He first points out the "familiar kangaroo,” which, upon discovering that a camera has intruded into their privacy, wastes no time in collecting its joey into its pouch and hopping well out of the camera's range. We next meet the hyena-laughed kookaburras, which the narrator first refers to as "jackasses,” who laugh at the slightest things as if they were Cheech and Chong riding around in their van made out of weed. Then, as the camera zeroes in on a den laid into the riverbank, while numerous ducks swirl about in the waters adjacent, we meet a lovely lady platypus, who views her reflection in the water with an approving wink, but then bolts into her den due to her overwhelming shyness.

Suddenly, a male platypus crawls ashore on the other side of a log bisecting the riverbank, wrings the water out his tail, and then uses that tail to etch a semi-circle into the riverbank. "Looks like she's going to have a neighbor," the narrator intones, and sure enough, the boy 'pus starts digging into the soft clay of the bank, and then throws the stray dirt up and over the log into the yard of the lady 'pus. At first, she is angered about the uncalled for dumping on her property, until she peers over the log to investigate and spies the handsome new neighbor.

She is immediately smitten, perfumes her face with a flower, primps a little, and then chucks a wad of dirt back onto the head of the boy 'pus. He juts his head over the log to locate his attacker, and is himself smitten by the loveliness of the girl 'pus, and little red hearts spring out of his now love-addled pate, and he swoons, dropping onto his seat. In a most likely unmeant through thoroughly phallic-seeming bit, he jacks himself back up onto his feet with his beaver-like tail, but then swoons again, this time face down in the dirt. The girl makes to look over the log again, but the boy uses his tail to push himself over it at the same exact moment, and the pair meet eye-to-eye for the very first time. The girl bolts for the safety of her den, and the boy 'pus bounces merrily on his tail like a pogo stick (very much like Tigger).

The kookaburras, sitting in the tree overlooking the platypus riverbank, start laughing and mocking the boy’s lovesick behavior, and he eyes them with embarrassed scorn. As he is distracted, a female duck climbs out of the river and parks herself alongside the log opposite the boy platypus, so that he can only see her billed head. After drawing some cartoon hearts with arrows in the dust with his versatile tail, the boy spies the duck's head, but imagines it is his new love. He attempts to kiss her, but the lady 'pus crawls out of her den in time to see him making the moves on the duck. He throws her bill up into the air, and parades snootily past him to show him up. As twitter-pated as he is, he watches her march past, and then goes back to his ministrations of love on the sleeping fowl. He then does a double take, checks over the log to realize his mistake, and runs to the side of the lady 'pus. He tries to apologize, but she slaps him in the chin with her tail, and walks off. The kookaburras laugh at him again, and he burns red in the face, and then tries to cover his ears as they continue to mock him.

He then sees the girl 'pus swimming off in the river, and makes a concerted effort to catch up to her. She sees him, and decides to play it coy, and when he gets near her, she ducks under a leaf in the river. He swims into the leaf, which blinds him, and he conks his head on a nearby rock. He goes under, and the girl 'pus believes that he is in trouble, but he is only pretending to drown. Beside A Waterfall, a lovely tune, is sung on the soundtrack, as the girl 'pus watches her new love sink to the bottom of the river. As he lies on the bottom, he slightly opens one eye to see her worried reactions, and then quickly grabs a waterlily and holds it to his chest as if dead. The girl kisses her lost love, and he opens his eyes. He emits a bubble in the shape of a heart, which floats to the surface, where it causes heart-shaped ripples to flow out, which the boy and girl emerge up and out of in their reverie. They spend the afternoon chasing each other about the river, floating on lily pads, sliding down waterfalls, and silently professing their adoration to each other.

Time passes to a short while later, as we see the pair standing in a heart-carved den in the riverbank, and this time, they have a baby platypus at their feet. The kookaburras are heard to be laughing again, and the mammalian pair and their offspring look up into the tree above. This time, it is not the pair of kookaburras that mocked them over and over before. Instead, it is their quartet of bratty kookaburra kids, and the parent birds are cowering red-faced and are no longer amused at anything. The platypuses get a kick out of seeing the kookaburras get a taste of their own medicine, and they chuckle quietly. The film irises out, but to the baby platypus’ surprise, he is left sitting on a blue screen surrounded by a rainbow of flowers and the name of the production company.

The Australian Platypus is cute in a way that normally gives me the dry heaves, but there is so much artistry at work here, that it would be a shame to overlook this film. Simply for the novelty of the characterizations alone, it is interesting to view, and while it seems that the saccharine content would choke a Care Bear, there is considerable charm in how this cuteness is applied. This film is also a subtle reminder that good animation is not always about the "funny". So often, when watching animation, we tend to automatically lean towards what is riotous or even mildly humorous. Because most of American animation has always been about making Americans laugh, we lose track of the fact that animation can be used to express any emotion, even something that sounds as hokey to our ears as simple love.

This loss of remembrance of the range of animation can often be a blessing, though. As a youth, I was shocked into submission when I first saw MGM's Peace on Earth from 1939, a devastatingly somber recounting of man's evil visited upon his fellow man. I went into that cartoon thinking it would be simply cute furry animals, and was rained upon with some of the creepiest and most chilling war imagery that I, though a child of relatively young vintage, had seen to that point. And as such, it helped solidify my personal disgust with the military mindset and hatred of man's macho and absurdist warlike attitude as much as, say, the original 1931 version of All Quiet on the Western Front did. (That one put it over the top for me.)

Luckily, there is a distinct lack of such evil in The Australian Platypus. It is all love and happiness and carefree sentimentality. But, sometimes, well-done animation is enough to make such a film a worthwhile watch. The majority of Bambi is like this; the majority of Snow White is like this. Yes, there are the incredibly jarring sequences of fear and terror that actually form the core of the actions of the characters, and which make those feature-length animated films truly memorable and classic. But a good portion of both films is simple fluff: cute little people and cute little animals acting cutely. While this film does not retain the terror factor of Hand's feature films at Disney, that is not the purpose here. 

That these films seem more like Happy Harmonies than Looney Tunes, especially this film, is no detriment to Hand. (Other films, like the Ginger Nutt films that comprise almost half of the Animaland series, rely more on a light version of Warner-style antics.) Hand was a craftsman, and he created exactly what he wanted to create in these films: happy little worlds for all audiences to enjoy. That the films did not take worldwide is not his fault. They are exceptionally well-made films. This film may not be "funny" in the way that we expect our cartoons to be, and in the way that very few cartoons actually are, but it is mildly amusing. If the cuteness seems a little cloying to you, I believe that its novelty more than makes up for it. And the animation is beautiful and lush enough to keep one watching for merely the design aspect alone.

After all, where else are you going to get to see two cavorting animated platypi... uh, platypuses... uh, platypodes... oh, whatever...

RTJ

*****

And in case you haven't seen it...

[This article was given an update with new photos on 12/18/15.]

Two-Lip Time (1926)

Two-Lip Time (Pat Sullivan, 1926, silent) 
Dir.: Otto Messmer
Cel Bloc Rating: 7/9

My cat Buster Keaton Ghidorah doesn't think. At least, he doesn't think like Felix the Cat. He doesn't pace back and forth, hands clenched together behind his lower back, scowling as if to scare that elusive strand of thought out from under the cupboard in his brain. My cat also doesn't have a tail that detaches from his body and forms a big black question mark whenever he sees something that draws his curiosity, or that can turn into any number of helpful tools whenever he needs a way out of a pinch. He also doesn't walk in a bipedal fashion like Felix, which would prove to be an unnerving sight if he were actually able to do that for even a stretch of three feet.

Lastly, he is not silent like Felix: he talks and talks and talks... and loudly! I remember a few years back where there was a glorious run of about two days after he was trapped out of the house (due to his own quick bolt as I was leaving; he was an outdoor cat, so I didn't think anything of it)... and couldn't meow, couldn't purr, couldn't squeak... for a blessedly low-key and pin-dropping quiet and sweet two days after my return. He would do his normal routine, but either something scared him or whatever, but he was my little quiet Felix for two wonderful days. When he did return to his boisterous yowling, demanding ways, it was in small increments, and so, the entire week was nearly silent in that regard.

Buster still didn't think like Felix either, even after that wake up call, though someone did plan and pull off the Great Post-Thanksgiving Refrigerator Robbery of 2001, in which every leftover given to me from three different households ended up down the gullets of both my cat and my equally sized dog, Blip Ignatz Mice. Either they worked in tandem to get that door open, or one of them had been planning that caper, but perhaps it was the delicious smell of all of that wonderful turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing that drove them to do such a crime. (I know that I'm that way about mashed potatoes too.) So, maybe he did pace back and forth on his hind legs, slouched and scowling, tail shaping into a lightbulb of discovery, and then finally unleashing his master break-in of the fridge.

Felix is definitely hungry at the start of Two-Lip Time, one of his adventures from 1926, but he is not seen thinking his way through the problem. Instead he is on a dock in a harbor, hot on the trail of his potential dinner victim: a tiny mouse. The mouse runs off on a rope leading to a massive ocean liner, and Felix follows suit. The problem comes when a sailor undoes the rope just after the pair run into the ship, and the liner takes to the open sea. Felix doesn't notice until the mouse disappears down a hole in the floor, and suddenly our hero realizes where he is: two portholes show the sloshing waves of the sea and the tilt of the ship's axis, and poor Felix slowly becomes seasick. He tries to concentrate on catching the now unseen mouse, but his stomach yearns for something else, and eventually he can no longer keep what few contents reside within intact anymore. He runs to the porthole, hangs his head out and throws up into the ocean. (We don’t actually see him throw up, of course; it is implied by the heaving of his body out of the porthole.)

A title card tells us that Felix is suddenly "IN DUTCH", and sure enough, the boat pulls into a port in Holland, with a horizon dotted with windmills, and with a couple dozen of the citizenry there to greet the unseen passengers on the liner. Felix takes in the strange surroundings, and then espies a cute little Dutch girl, complete with the stereotypical clogs, and swiftly forgets his stomach hunger and starts a new kind of craving. He instantly falls in love with the girl, and leaps from the porthole to join the girl on the ground. He asks if she would walk with him, and she agrees in kind. As they walk, Felix flirts with her and eventually kisses her. Unfortunately for the Cat, she has a little Dutch suitor, who shows his jealousy by confronting Felix and attacking him. Felix runs to a nearby car and retrieves a tire pump from it. He runs back to the boy and pumps air into his pants, turning the boy's bottom half into a balloon that rises into the clouds and carries Felix's rival away.

Felix then pulls out a banjo and makes to serenade his new beloved, but his strangled mewling wakes up a man who is asleep on the porch nearby house. The man is most decidedly not happy about this, and his wooden shoe at the Cat. As the man threatens to give chase to Felix, our hero uses the shoe as a boat, taking to a nearby river and turning an exclamation point over his head into a makeshift paddle. Felix stops rowing and looks back to check the man's progress, but the boat continues on without him, and he has to run on the air to catch up with it. He eventually finds safety on the other shore, swearing off the whole situation, including, apparently, his love for the girl.

In a nearby yard, Felix comes across a bottle of gin sitting on a table. He smells the liquor and finds it not to his liking, but then spies a bottle of milk enticing him from the sill of the house adjacent to him. After Felix makes an unsuccessful attempt to steal the milk, a man appears in the window, and Felix begs for the bottle. The man tells him that if Felix would water the flowers in the garden (tulips, naturally), then Felix will get the bottle of milk. The man departs, and Felix tips the table backwards so that the gin in the bottle pours into a conveniently placed water-can. He then profusely "waters" the tulips, and the little buds come to life instantly. One tulip even drinks the gin that forms into a pool on the ground; then all of the now besotted flowers beg for more of the precious "water". Felix then pours the gin onto the base of a tree, which instantly begins to act drunkenly, and then staggers and stumbles its way offscreen.

The man, meanwhile, has caught on to Felix's antics, and chases the cat through the countryside. They first spin round and round on one windmill, and then the man chases Felix to a second one. Here, Felix climbs to the very top, and then detaches his tail to use it as a hand-crank. He spins the blades of the windmill ever faster, until the entire thing is spinning like an enormous fan. A hurricane-strength wind arises from Felix's cranking, and his nemesis is blown out of sight. Felix puts his tail back on, looks at the camera, and laughs heartily to finish the picture.

I like the fact that the title has a double meaning in its use of "Two-Lip", and the details on individual characters are incredibly vivid. (The sequence of the man removing his shoe has a depth to its design that is quite astonishing for a film from the early days of animation.) The shipboard sickness scene does go on a little too long, but the starkness of the room combined with the two portholes with the sloshing seawater is a most memorable image. Felix has a swell character bit, where, after he has dumped the gin and is about to water the flowers, he does a silly straightening and flourish to his whiskers. I also like the fact that once Felix gets to Holland, he completely forgets his hunger, only rediscovering it once he has given up on the girl, and then sees the bottle of milk. Love can make you forget you are starving to death, I suppose.

Of course, he never does get to down anything in the cartoon, and this is where he definitely differs from my cat. I attribute this to Felix's silence: no matter how loud Felix yells in these films, they are silent movies, and he is going about the process all wrong. My cat, on the other hand, CAN'T... SHUT... UP...! The slightest twinge of hunger gets him yowling, and the only way to tone him down is to feed him. NOW!

If only it were possible to distract him with a little Dutch girl...

[This article was updated with new photos and edited on 11/23/2015.]

Honeymoon Hotel (1934)

Honeymoon Hotel (Warner Bros., 1934) 
Dir: Earl Duvall
Cel Bloc Rating: 6/9

Mr. Bug looks like he's finally going to get some from his ladybug love in Honeymoon Hotel, the first of the Merrie Melodies series from Warner Bros. to be released in some rudimentary form of color processing. 

The process in this case was called CineColor, and it didn't last that long, as Warners only used it until early 1936, by which time the three-strip Technicolor process was no longer contracted only to the Walt Disney studio. As such, with only the red and green bars of the color spectrum available for use for CineColor (known as two-strip), it is not nearly as dynamic as Warner's could have wished. But one did what they could with what they had, and within the next two years, the Merrie Melodies would go to all color cartoons. (Looney Tunes would remain in black-and-white through 1943.)

In Honeymoon Hotel, Mr. and Mrs. Bug don't notice that they are in a minor league version of a color film; they are far too much in love, and on their way to the hotel in the title so that Mr. Bug can give the Mrs. a good shellacking. They only just met and fell in love in the Bugville park, where a single kiss on a ride in a peapod canoe leads them straight to the altar, and then onward to their consummation destination.

All of the story up through the hotel's introduction is told through song, in an elaborate and immensely cute staging of the sights and life in Bugville. A trio of sign painters pull themselves up to the top of a sign that reads at the top, "Visit Bugtown," and they sing along with lyrics that one of the painters splashes onto the sign as they pulley themselves back down...

"We are here to say
what we have to say
in the proper way to you!
Our job is just to advertise
to put you wise.

So we're gonna say
all we have to say,
you are not so far away.
So why not come on up sometime
to Bugtown's buggy clime?"

The scene switches to an overview of the town itself, with cute little insects running to and fro making their busy way. The trio continues singing over the action...

"Come along and take a trip to Bugtown.
We will try to give you something new.
We will show you insects that are living
just the same as me and you."

The scene switches again, this time to a four way traffic stop, where a police bug is blowing his whistle frantically at bug cars from all directions. In the middle of the verse, the scene will jump to a human lunch box which is being used as a diner by several bugs...

"Here you find a very busy corner;
traffic here is handled very well.
Here you find a buggy little lunchroom
where they say the food is swell."

We see a tea kettle with a hole smashed in the side that business bugs are using as a doorway to their Chamber of Commerce, and then a trolley line that has been constructed from various human objects such as matches and combs...

"Goodbye to depression,
business here is fine!
Perfect transportation
on Bugville's trolley line! [Note: I guess they forgot it was called Bugtown.]

A discarded human mailbox is naturally used for a post office, and an old rat trap or cage (not sure which) is being used to incarcerate a single felon...

"And here's an anxious crowd of buggy people,
who have come to town to get their mail.
Here's a little alimony dodger
in the Bugtown County Jail!"

Then we get to the good stuff. We enter a park area where there are several pairs of bugs pitching woo and playing. And we are finally introduced to the bug couple that I mentioned above, as the boy bug plucks a pea pod from a plant, pulls out the peas, and then turns the pod into a makeshift canoe and rows his ladybug love down a stream...

"And Bugville even has a park
for bugs to have a lark!
Now you've seen this buggy town,
how'd you like to stick around,
long enough to catch a glance
of a budding bug romance?
A ladybug who likes to hug
has fallen for a tumblebug!"

After a quick smooch in the canoe, wedding bells are heard, and the now married pair leave a church and climb into their rambler. And thus we finally get to the Honeymoon Hotel, where the bugs are going to get it on but good. The problem for the bug couple is this: everyone is far too interested in what is bound to go on in their room, and the newlyweds can't get any peace. Even their rambler has a red face with the thought of these two on their honeymoon night, and when they run into the hotel, the car stands up and whistles them back. He says in a very embarrassed way, "Goodnighhhhht!" and then sighs, holding his hands together wistfully.

As they walk in, the caterpillar bellboy, who stands tall and is laden with numerous suitcases and boxes, sings...

"I'm the guy who carries all the luggage,
I work in the Honeymoon Hotel!
I see all the kissage and the huggage,
many other things as well!"

The desk clerk is there to greet them, and he sings too...

"I'm the guy to see for reservations!
You'll find our hotel very neat!"

The groom sings a line to the desk clerk, and then the bride tells where they would like to stay...

Groom: "That's [indecipherable] combination."
Bride: "Yes, we want the bridal suite!"

Mr. Bug rubber-stamps the type "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" below all of the other entries saying the same in the register. Once they make it to their room, and after paying the bellboy with several coins that catches, each one with a separate hand, the couple slam the door to get going. The hotel detective is suspicious (or simply a major Peeping Tom) and tries to look through their keyhole, but they move the doorknob up too high for him to look in. (Other doorknobs spit in his eye, give him a raspberry, and make a fist and sock him in the face.) 

Room service boy bugs and maid service girl bugs barge into their room, offering, in song, all manner of drinks and clean bedding...

"How about a little glass of something?
Just a special brand we know is swell?
This will [indecipherable] you get good service
at the Honeymoon Hotel!

Pardon us, but here's some extra bedding!
Might be chilly, one can never tell.
We are here to see that you are comfy
in the Honeymoon Hotel!"

Mr. Bug, who just wants to spend some uninterrupted time with his ladybug, tells off the lot of them (though always with a smile on his face)...

"This is quite disturbing!
Why don't you say 'Good night'?"

And Mrs. Bug adds, though much more sweetly and clasping her hands...

"If you'd only leave us,
I'm sure we'd be alright!"

The room and maid service bugs respond...

Maids: "Very good, we'll see you in the morning!"
Room service: "Pleasant dreams and hope that you sleep well!"
All: "Guests don't go to sleep 'til dawning
in the Honeymoon Hotel!"

When they leave, the hotel service gang crowd around the doorknob and some climb up to peer through the transom, and one even produces a telescope, to watch the lovemaking of the two bugs. The Man in the Moon outside their window says "Ahhhh!" and Mr. Bug closes the blind. But it springs open again, and the Man in the Moon sings to the bugs his intention of spying on them...

"Ah! The moon is here!
You're in love, I fear!
I can see everything that you do!"

Mr. Bug turns out the light to darken the room and the bugs kiss, but the Man in the Moon turns a brilliant shade of vermillion, and says ashamedly, "Is my face red!" The bugs kiss again, and the thermometer on the wall shoots mercury to a heart at its base that pulsates and then shoots up the top of the thermometer, past a marking that reads "danger," and then the thermometer bursts and punches a fire alarm above it on the wall!

The Bugville Fire Department is called to put out the blaze engulfing the entire Honeymoon Hotel due to Mr. and Mrs. Bug's passion! The water truck carries a seltzer bottle along with a couple of hoses, and the hook and ladder is a caterpillar laden with a couple of combs. Another firetruck built out of a cheese grater and an alarm clock rings loudly on its way to the inferno. Residents jump out of the windows of the Honeymoon Hotel onto water bottles as the firefighters work to put out the blaze.

The bug couple are trapped in their room, but climb into the Murphy bed together and close it into the wall. The entire hotel is taken except for about half of their room, including the walls into which the bed is built, and where the front door was set. Mr. Bug crawls out of the bed and hangs a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door, and then shuts it. He and Mrs. Bug wink at the camera and then close the Murphy bed back into the wall. There is a calendar saying "February" on the underside of the bed, with a picture of a baby bug, who also winks at the camera. Iris out.

It's historical significance as the first CineColor Merrie Melodie noted, this is a cutesy and fairly innocuous entry in the Warner Bros. pantheon, there being numerous films already in existence of its ilk, if not general quality. While there are a number of clever moments and the lyrics of the song are fun, its chief interest for me is in its already mentioned inclusion of several mild innuendo.

And remember what Groucho Marx said:

"Love flies out the door when money comes innuendo."

RTJ

*****

And in case you haven't seen it...

[This article was revised and updated with new photos on 1/9/16.]